


so fill to me the parting glass

by pokeasleepingsmaug



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Developing Friendships, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 01:31:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18420056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pokeasleepingsmaug/pseuds/pokeasleepingsmaug
Summary: Praying for his wife's soul, Beocca has an unexpected companion who teaches him grief is a burden best shared.





	so fill to me the parting glass

**Author's Note:**

> Title of the work from the song The Parting Glass.

Beocca cannot even stand to look at him, the Dane boy that Uhtred keeps in his company, the son of the man who tormented his wife for years. Thyra always was kind to him, always returned his soft half-smiles and even drank ale with him in taverns sometimes, but Boecca has always struggled to bear the sight of him. His wife always was the better part of him, anyway. It's worse now, to see him when she's gone. Burnt. Just like her family all those years ago, and Beocca finds himself mourning that his good Christian wife is all alone in her heaven. Everyone she loved and lost has been pagan. 

The rat-faced Dane clears his throat, and Beocca's lip curls into a sneer as he turns to him. “Best go find your own wife before she finds her way under another man.” The steady lad only quirks one brow, but otherwise he does not acknowledge Beocca's venom.

“When I lost the person I loved most,” he begins, voice mild, “I drank for three days. I admit I was trying to drink myself into a grave beside her.” 

“Pity you didn't succeed, since I must suffer you now.” 

Kjartan's son shrugs. “Maybe it was for the better, no?” He pauses and shifts on the hard bench, looking away from Beocca like he knows the priest cannot stand the heathen tattoos decorating his head. “Did she tell you what it was like? Dunholm?” 

“I witnessed it,” Beocca reminds him sharply, his words like broken glass cutting his throat as he speaks them, as he remembers the first time he saw her. Filthy skin pale as mist, tangled red hair, empty eyes. 

Sihtric shakes his head, fixing Beocca with a heavy stare. “You only think you know. Did she tell you anything?”

“She told me everything, you heathen bastard, everything that your father and brother did to her. Your mother was a whore and a pagan, your father a rapist and murderer! You should not be in a house of God, you child of sin!”

“My mother was many things, but pagan was not one of them. I would argue that whore wasn’t, either. You seem to be confusing her with my wife?” It’s an attempt at lightening the mood, but Beocca will have none of it. The only reason he doesn’t spit in the Dane’s face is because this is a place of God. 

“Your mother lay with Kjartan and shat you out, what else would she be?”

He hums, glancing down at his clenched fists. Beocca follows his gaze, is surprised by the whiteness of the knuckles, sort of hopes, in a sick way, this boy will try to knock some teeth into the back of his throat. Maybe that would finally convince Uhtred to dismiss him. “My mother lay with Kjartan the same way your wife lay with Sven.” He spits the name of his brother like it’s ash on his tongue, and these are things that no, Thyra never told him. He thinks, for a moment, that maybe Dunholm’s high walls sheltered other stories, other tragedies, but he does not allow himself to dwell on it. “There was an old woman there, an herb-wife,” Sihtric continues. “If she could, she would sneak the young girls herbs to keep them from conceiving. She could not aid my mother in time, unfortunately for you.”

Beocca doesn’t want to ask, but he’s compelled. “Thyra?”

He nods slowly, inspecting his fingernails and apparently finding them unsatisfactory. He takes a small knife from some hidden sheath in his boot and begins cleaning underneath them. Beocca cranes his neck, but can catch no glimpse of dirt. He’s seen him do this before, idly, and begins wondering if it’s something else to focus on besides the memories he’s drudging up. For him, Beocca reminds himself. And he doesn’t want to think of Thyra cowering in her cage, but he wants to know every detail this boy can offer him. He misses her so much, he’ll take whatever ugly memories he can, and weep over them in his evening ale. “My mother was the one responsible for delivering her food and drink. She ensured Thyra received the herbs. Wanted to ease what suffering of hers she could.”

“Oh.” Beocca’s voice is small. He does not want to pity this man, this war-hardened Dane, but there’s something boyish in his face as he looks up, one of the small half-smiles he used to share with Thyra softening his sharp features. 

“Keep your pity, priest. You don’t want to give it, and I’ve no wish to receive it. She may not have wanted me at first, but she loved me nonetheless.” Beocca realizes with a start that this is the longest conversation he's ever had with the young Dane. Truth be told, he'd always thought him rather stupid, although he's beginning to reconsider. 

“What else can you tell me?” Beocca hates himself for asking, hates the way the hostility has fled him. Hates that he's starting to soften toward Kjartan's son. 

“What do you wish to know?” He counters, tilting his head. 

“Where is your mother now?” He scarcely dares hope, and he knows, in his Christian heart, that he shouldn't want this lad's mother to be dead. But he's so desperate for Thyra to have company while she waits for him that he hopes, vehemently, that she is. 

The dark-eyed Dane shrugs like he doesn't care anymore, but he's staring at the simple wooden crucifix hanging above the altar like a starving man might stare at a loaf of bread. “In her Christian heaven, I hope. Kjartan set his dogs on her, after she tried to poison him.” The words land heavy between them, and finally Sihtric rips his gaze from the cross and back to Beocca. “Will attempted murder keep her from that place?”

Beocca has seen Sihtric take life without thought, has seen him press a sword into a dying man's hand, seen him celebrate a marriage and play with children, but he can never recall seeing such feeling on his face before. Usually he's unreadable, a skill no doubt learned at the heavy fists of his father. But now his face is earnest and hopeful, and Beocca is not lying when he answers. “God is just. I think, under the circumstances, He would permit her to enter.” 

“She will be with Thyra, then. She was the only one that Thyra's dogs did not chase away.” His mouth twists ironically, but whatever memory rises in him next, he does not share. 

“I miss her,” Beocca admits, voice trembling, the words ripped from him almost against his will. “I cannot fathom life without her.” 

The dark eyes are soft and understanding when they meet his next. “And yet you will find a way. I knew Thyra long before you did, she would not want you to stop living. Grief is a burden best shared.” A solid, fur-clad shoulder bumps against Beocca's, and he does not recoil. The contact is brief but grounding. “There is a custom among the Danes, I suppose you will consider it pagan. But remember Thyra was pagan before she found your God, and even he could not save her.” Sihtric's voice is so gentle, Beocca wants to be angry at the slight to God but finds instead he's only angry at God. He nods as Sihtric stands, and blinks as he follows him outside. 

It had been full daylight when he entered the church, but dusk is falling softly around them, the first stars beginning to wink into existence. He follows Sihtric in silence, and realizes with a slight start they're heading toward a tavern. “I should be praying for my wife's soul, not drinking!” Beocca hisses, anger rising in him again at this useless young Dane. 

“You should drink a parting cup to her as the evening falls. It is the way.” Sihtric stops and jerks his head forward. A table has been dragged outside the tavern, a pitcher of ale in the middle. Uhtred pours him a cup and hands it to him, wordlessly, because he knows what a knife to the heart it is to lose a wife. Finan raises his full cup in a wordless salute as Beocca slides into the empty spot beside Hild. He takes a long sip of ale, and the rest of them mirror him. “I think Thyra would laugh, to see me indulging a pagan custom.” And he finds, for the first time, that speaking her name hurts less than he thought it would.


End file.
